


the jump was my decision

by myladybrienne



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 8x4 spoilers, Angst, F/M, don't even know how to tag this tbh, i am full of hurt after ep4, very sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-02-27 00:03:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myladybrienne/pseuds/myladybrienne
Summary: jaime's journey after he leaves winterfell. you'll see where i'm going with this, i don't even know if this is what i think will/want to happen but my heart is in pain and i needed to write something.





	1. Chapter 1

The betrayal on her face had almost torn Jaime to shreds. He had hoped to slip away under cover of night, but even her words wouldn’t have hurt as much as that look. Desperation and love and shame.   
  
Every night in his dreams, he was haunted by that look. He rode longer and harder than he had on his way North because sleep was too hard to bear. It took him eleven days to get to King’s Landing, and he had seen the Dragon Queen’s forces on their way, they were only a few hours behind him.   
  
Entering the city was remarkably easy. Guards believed him when he said he was returned to his rightful place, at the side of Queen Cersei. Nobody would dare to question the intentions of Lannister’s Golden Lion, nobody under threat of Cersei’s wrath at least.   
  
The Red Keep was more of a challenge. He waited it out among the peasants, hoping not to be recognised, until Jon Snow and the armies arrived. Almost every man with a sword left the Red Keep and readied themselves to defend the city walls.   
  
He wanted to see her one last time, to beg her to surrender, to defend her if he could. She was going to die, he was almost certain of that, but couldn’t bear to live without her. _We entered this world together, and we will die together._ She had reminded him of that so many times: it felt like fact.   
  
In her private quarters, she watched from her window with Qyburn and the Mountain and Ser Boros. Boros was the first to go: Jaime put a sword through him before he even noticed it.   
  
“You killed my guard,” observed Cersei placidly. Somehow, she wasn’t shocked by his arrival, or if she was, she concealed it well. “However, Ser Gregor is still here.”

Blood pulsed in his veins. Last time they were here, she had threatened his life. Jaime hoped that his sister would never stoop so low as that, she still valued family more highly than anything else. His loyalties would be hard to convince her of, he had betrayed her for a pathetic promise that had almost got him killed.

“They’re going to kill you, Cersei,” he uttered timidly. “I know you don’t believe the Dragon Queen is strong enough but they’ll never stop. She’s turned all Seven Kingdoms against you now. Your only stronghold is this city, and sieges are nasty business.”   
  
“So are battles, dear brother. So is war, so is being queen, so is life. If you haven’t realised that by now then I wonder how you’re still alive,” she bit out viciously. “Why are you here? Did you make another silly vow that’s going to cost you your life?”   
  
_She truly is despicable_ , he thought. There was no curve of her belly, he might’ve expected that. Perhaps, the baby truly was a Greyjoy. Perhaps, she’d lied as she so marvellously did. He didn’t care anymore: she was the reason he was here, not some future yet to flourish or some vague chance at happiness. Jaime Lannister belonged at the side of his sister for as long as either of them lived and he knew it.

“I’m here to fight for you, if I have to. If you surrender, she’ll let you live. Tyrion won’t let her kill you, especially not now that I’m back at your side. But if you don’t want that…if the throne really means so much to you, then I’ll die keeping the bitch out of your capital.”   
  
Cersei scoffed at him. It was hard to take him seriously with his dent-ridden armour and his golden hand. _Of course he will die,_ thought Cersei, _there’s no way he could survive another fight._  
  
“And why should I believe you? You ask me to surrender to a false queen, that sounds like _her_ bidding rather than your own.”   
  
He stepped closer to her. The proximity of Ser Gregor at his side made him uneasy but he needed to be close to her, to hold her if she would let him, to remember what it feels like to be at her side. Brienne was so different that it had scared him, he had fled not just back to her, but away from that life, what it could have become if he’d stayed.   
  
“I came back. After you told me you wanted me dead. What greater risk could I take for you than that?”   
  
Cersei looked at him and he could see the doubt in her eyes. She was about to feign relief at his return, and to tell him how pleased she was, and how terrified she had been while he was gone. Jaime could read his sister like a book: it was one of the many advantages of being the person in the world who knew her best.

And so, she did. She smiled at him and the way her emerald eyes glistened warmed his heart. He was back where he belonged. She tucked herself into his chest and led his gaze beyond the balcony on which they stood. The fight had begun, and it was hard to tell who was winning. All the fire made it difficult to see the battlefield from such a distance.

“They’ll never step foot inside the gates, and if they do, they’ll meet the greatest Queensguard the Gods have ever seen at the Red Keep’s doors.” There was a hunger in her, malicious and powerful and pitifully desperate. All he wanted was to stamp it out, to find the girl he’d loved before all of the weddings and the crowns and the funerals ruined her.   
  
“They surely will,” he declared woefully and, suddenly grateful for his choice of stance, shoved Ser Gregor with all his bodily might over the balcony and watched his armoured mass drop like a stone to the Red Keep’s doors. “That man always unnerved me so.”   
  
Qyburn cowered away from the pair of them like a dormouse. He had no loyalty to Cersei and everybody knew it, most of all the Queen herself. The only person in the world she trusted was herself, and that was a _truly_ unbreakable bond. Almost like the bond between twin siblings: _enter the world together, leave the world together._  
  
“Jaime,” Cersei began with a quiver in her voice that she didn’t quite manage to suppress. “Are you really going to kill me? For some bitch with a dragon and an old family name?”   
  
“Bend the knee, I’m begging you. I don’t want to kill another monarch I’ve sworn to protect. Lannister troops stormed the city last time, and now Targaryen forces are advancing on King’s Landing. It’s poetic in a way, but we weren’t destined for poetic deaths, Cersei. Surrender. Give the bitch her throne and Tyrion will find us a little castle to use as a prison, we’ll live out the rest of our days there and we’ll die. We’ll die old and together and as we are _supposed_ to die.”   
  
Her hair was so much shorter now. It was strange to see her like that. He hadn’t ever imagined her as anything other than the beautiful blonde princess that she had always been. Now, she truly looked like a queen.   
  
“Will you kill me if I don’t?” asked Cersei.

“I don’t want to, but I won’t let them butcher you. I won’t give the satisfaction of ending your life, it would send her crazy and the mad impulses of a Targaryen are not something I want to encourage.” His heart was pounding against his ribcage like it was about to burn from its resting places behind his bones. “There is nothing in this world that I need more than you, Cersei. But the world extends beyond this room, they don’t matter at all but we can’t pretend that they simply aren’t there.”   
  
Cersei’s eyes were locked on the battlefield, ablaze with the breath of Drogon. Alone in the world, like so many. That solitude was something she had never known: Jaime was always there, even when he wasn’t. She had been blessed with his existence, and now he would prove to be her destruction.   
  
“There is no baby.” The voice was strangled, like that of a drowned man. All eyes were on Qyburn in that moment and he flushed red under their harsh gaze. “I have served you loyally, my Grace, but I am riddled with the deceit you have beset upon me. If this is the life of the Hand of the Queen, I am ready to be done with it. The position, _or_ my life. I have made my peace.”

A part of Jaime felt a stab of grief. For this unborn child that had never even existed, for the hope it had represented, for the woman who might have softened in loving it. He had known in the depths of his heart and he had believed it would make no difference, yet to his surprise, it did.

Rage consumed his sister and her posture rose up in grandeur with fury.  For a moment, he thought she was going to strangle the old man. Instead, she made great strides for the door.

Widow’s Wail glided from her hilt and in one fell swoop, was thrust into the back of Queen Cersei. _The Mad Queen,_ he thought for a moment. Straight in and straight out, nice and clean. Aerys had yelled out in anger where Cersei had only gasped. She collapsed to the ground and he caught her head, dropped to his knees and held her there as she bled.

“We were born together and we will die together,” she breathed out, bearing the pain. “Your heart will be burned with my body and you know it. You are _nothing_ without me, Jaime.” 

He thought of slitting her throat, to finish the job, so she didn’t have to suffer. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. It reminded him too much, of the things he had done, of the things he had tried so hard to forget ever doing. It wasn’t long before she stopped breathing and he dropped her head.

“The Queen is dead. Long Live the Dragon Queen,” mumbled Qyburn from his corner.   
  
Without reluctance, Jaime stood and pushed his still red-coated blade through the cunt’s chest and watched him collapse against the wall with widened eyes.

He swallowed back the tears he longed to shed for his sister and headed for the gates. He could mourn and mope and kill himself once he’d made sure it was worth it. The war was over and the Iron Throne was ready to be claimed.


	2. Chapter 2

Brienne met the rest of the armies a day’s ride down the King’s Road. It hadn’t taken her long to catch up to them. She had left in the middle of the night but nothing but the armour on her back and the sword in her belt. A note for Lady Sansa, an apology, a promise that she would return with the capital secured for the Dragon Queen and the Seven Kingdoms safe and united under one ruler.

Jon Snow had been the most confused of all of them. When she had told him the truth, of Jaime’s betrayal and of his plan to return to Cersei, Jon had looked at the Tarth woman with something greater than pity in his gaze.

For ten days and ten nights, she hid herself away from her brothers in arms. She barely ate and barely slept and barely spoke. She had one goal: to kill Queen Cersei and to watch the colour drain from Jaime’s face as she did it.   
  
Never, in all her years, had she killed for malice before, but the honour she had found in him was false and she had never known betrayal like it. Not in the men who had tried to rape her, not in Stannis Baratheon or in Ramsay Bolton or in Petyr Baelish. It had set something ablaze inside of her that she couldn’t hope to tame.   
  
When they arrived, she readied herself for the battle. She would not desert her fellow soldiers. She would fight with them until the opportunity came, and then she would head straight for the Red Keep. The valyrian steel of Ned Stark’s sword would pierce the flesh of the woman who had orchestrated his death, who had ordered his wife and his heir killed, and who had tortured and abused his eldest daughter.   
  
She was nearing the gate and she believed the time to act was now. Their numbers were thinning and soon, any hope of entering the city walls would be lost. She cut down an Greyjoy oaf and rode for the drawbridge.   
  
“Cersei is dead!” The voice came out of nowhere. It was barely audible over the furore of men at war. She wasn’t sure if her mind had conjured it up until she heard it again. The men all around her lowered their weapons and turned towards the gates.   
  
_Jaime Lannister._  
  
“The Iron Throne belongs to Queen Daenerys Targaryen, rightful heir to the Seven Kingdoms,” he declared boldly and suddenly Drogon was landed at his side and the Dragon Queen was approaching him.   
  
Brienne didn’t think. Her mind didn’t have time for that yet. Instead she watched as men of both sides dropped their swords to the ground and practically fell off their horses. _Remarkable how quickly a paid man’s loyalty runs out_ , she thought.

Confusion was consuming her. The exhaustion of eleven days hit her square in the face and she couldn’t think straight. Who had killed Cersei? Why had Jaime been so quick to bend the knee to the Queen? What would happen next?

Everything for hours was a blur. She followed the Stark men as they claimed the city in the name of the Queen. She ate the food they were offered by the people of King’s Landing and cleaned the blade and wondered if it might be poetic justice to lend it to whoever executed Jaime for his treachery.

“Ser Brienne.” The sword was at his throat in half a second and right then, she could’ve killed him.   
  
“You _dare_ come near me?” Tears threatened to spill but she would not cry for him, not again. “You desert not only me but every man who fought with you in the greatest battle of all our lives. You return to the side of your beloved Cersei. Then you not only pledge your loyalty to the Queen in hopes of saving yourself – a pointless effort anyhow – but you dare _speak_ my name. And I am no knight. Only a knight can make a knight, and you are nothing but a traitor.”   
  
_He has nerve,_ thought Brienne. _Coming out here and parading himself among the men he has deserted. If they realise who he is, he’ll be dead in moments._  
  
“I killed her,” said Jaime. “I begged her to surrender and when she tried to walk away from me, I stabbed her in the back, and I held her in my arms as she bled to death.”   
  
Shock filled her veins like poison, and she couldn’t move, not an inch, she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t blink. All she could do was stare at him until he continued to speak.

“She was never going to survive this. From the moment I heard Rhaegal and Missandei were dead, I knew there was no other fate for her. If she’d bent the knee, Tyrion and I might have bargained for the life of a child – another pointless effort it would seem – but if she wouldn’t, I could give her a clean death. She was hateful and vicious, and I am exactly the same as her, but she didn’t deserve the cruelty that the Dragon Queen would’ve issued.”   
  
“Do you deserve it?” asked Brienne. “You’re still a traitor, even if you did kill her in the end. Queen Daenerys won’t let you live. Are you hoping for a clean death, Jaime?”   
  
The coldness of her demeanour seemed practiced to him. It was, of course. Every night while the men had slept, she had imagined what she would say to him if she saw him again, and she had prepared herself with vicious words.   
  
“I don’t care anymore,” he admitted. “I welcome death. Living without her would be an agony of another kind. There are worse things than death, no matter how painful, Brienne.”   
  
His words cut into her resolve. They reminded her of the days in the woods with the Bloody Mummers, after his hand had been taken from him. His attitude back then had saddened her, not it filled her with a strange sort of pity.   
  
“You can’t die. You need to live, you coward. A little misfortune and you’re giving up. You have a taste of the real world where people have important things taken from them and you whine and cry and quit,” she recited it effortlessly. “You’re going to live, Jaime.”  

Persuading the Queen was easier than she’d expected. He would spend the rest of his life in prisons: they settled on Winterfell so he could struggle with the cold and Brienne could remain close at hand to make sure he continued to suffer. He had begged to be killed, plead with his brother to bring him a knife or a stick or one of Varys’ little vials.   
  
The Queen sent them north with the Stark men and Brienne showed the slayers of mad monarchs his new home. It was dark and damp and everything that Jaime despised about the North, and he was going to live there until he managed to starve himself to death.

It wouldn’t take him too long on prisoners’ rations, he told himself.


	3. Chapter 3

She watched him eat each day. Sometimes she would sit there for hours just waiting for him to take a bite of his food. It wasn’t as though she could threaten him, that was everything he wanted. So, she would wait, and eventually he would get so sick of listening to her that he would take a chunk out of a stale bread roll just for a moment’s peace. 

Misery was a hell of a punishment. Locked in his cell, he would weep all day and weep all night until he dried himself out and could weep no more. He would pray to the Old Gods and the New and to the Lord of Light for his death but they would grant him no such mercy.

“I know I betrayed you, Brienne, I know I hurt you in the worst way a person can but all I’m asking of you is that you kill me. I never thought I would have to _beg_ for the right to die and yet here I am.”   
  
She built back her thick defences against him and his words bounced right back everytime.   
  
After three weeks, his brother came to visit him. Traitor though he was, Jaime was still a Lannister and that meant something to the Imp. Brienne left them alone, but not before making it very clear that if she returned to find the prisoner dead, she would drown Lord Tyrion in the cheapest wine that she could find in all of the Seven Kingdoms.   
  
“She won’t leave,” mumbled Jaime once he heard the door shut. “Right outside the door, I’m betting. She never goes further than the end of the corridor. Lady Sansa has given up asking her to sleep in her chambers and to dine with the rest of the household. She is determined in her confinement of me.”   
  
“She’s loyal, even in her punishment of you. What a magnificent woman,” Tyrion said. “and she was magnificent for you. Your greatest talent in this world was ruining the things that were best for you, brother. It truly is a shame.”   
  
“Cersei taught me well how to ruin my own life.”   
  
There was so much to be discussed. He hoped that the mention of the dead Queen might divert the conversation so he could learn of what was going on beyond the four walls to which he was indefinitely bound. His efforts failed.

“Why did you do it? I don’t believe your nonsense about a clean death. Cersei didn’t care about how she died, and you knew that. I know my brother and I know he isn’t stupid enough to kill the love of his life for no better reason than that.”   
  
Jaime scoffed at that. _The love of his life,_ he repeated to himself. _She was right all along. Her death had ended his life, as well as hers._  
  
“The world was set to burn. I didn’t want to witness that. You forget, little brother, I’ve been deathly loyal to people before, and when they have stopped being themselves, I have done my duty to the rest of the world.” Jaime spoke honestly. Nobody cared his actions or the reasons behind them anymore, it was done. He wondered if people beyond the barred windows of his cell had forgotten his name yet, if they ever even spared a thought for the man who killed the rebel queen. “She needed to die. Everybody knew that. I was ready to kill her and die with her and let that be the end of it. It isn’t my fault that somebody decided it was better punishment to keep prisoner for all eternity instead.”  
  
Brienne shifted her weight from one foot to the other and back again outside of the cell’s door. It was cruel to keep him alive and she was entirely aware of that, but killing him would hurt her more than him, though she would never admit it.

“Brother, you weren’t bound together for life much though you may believe it.  You have acted without her before and frankly it was in those times that I liked you best. She is dead, she no longer has a hold on you. You don’t have to kill yourself for the memory of a dead woman. You won the war for the Iron Throne: there is no crime more easily pardonable, I assure you.” 

She listened intensely to him. Was he serious? Let Jaime Lannister go free because he’d always seemed to be a decent person without Cersei pulling his strings. He wasn’t as smart as she’d believed him to be if he thought that a plausible idea. 

“Why am I still here then, Tyrion?”   
  
“You’ll fall on your own blade the second you are let out of this cell. I won’t let my brother kill himself because our sister is dead. I refuse to be the rightful heir to the Rock. I’ll get you your pardon, once you make me believe that you would actually live long enough to see the sun rise again.”   
  
Lord Tyrion was ridiculous, but he wasn’t ultimately wrong. The only motive which ever mattered to Jaime was his sister and with her dead, he had no reason to do anything at all. His release would endanger nobody but himself, and that would be a non-issue.   
  
Two sharp knocks on the cell door. She turned the key and let Lord Tyrion leave the cell, bidding him a safe journey south before stepping inside and locking the door.   
  
“Going to stop forcing me to eat now, my lady?”


	4. Chapter 4

It was absolute torture spending every waking moment in each other’s company. Jaime wished that his grief would run dry just so he could stop looking at her. The guilt of what he’d done was still ingrained into his very being and every time he looked at her, he was reminded that it wasn’t just one but two women he’d betrayed.   
  
“I’m tired of wanting to die. Send a raven to the capital and ask for my pardon. I’d rather live anywhere than stay here wallowing in self-pity. Nothing can be worse than this.”   
  
Every day, he’d try and make her believe that he was ready to go on living, and every day she would rebuff his claim. He would beg and plead and she would refuse him.

One day, she woke up with a stiff neck from sleeping on the floor and stepped inside of the cell.

Tears were on his cheeks, but it was a new kind of crying, she could tell just by looking at him. It wasn’t performance, he’d been a dreadful liar since the day she’d met him, and she could see straight through even his most practiced attempts.

“She would’ve died anyway,” he said. “It was stupid of me to bring the task upon myself. I was a idiot, fuelled with false allegiance to a cause that never even existed. _We were born together and we will die together._ She told me that so often it became a mantra in my head. She’s gone and I’m still here and dying isn’t going to fix anything.”   
  
It was ineloquent and dramatic and not at all like the declarations he had made on the last 38 mornings when he had plead for his release. It was truth, she told herself, and she didn’t have a doubt in the world. 

Her eagerness to receive his pardon was not for him, but rather for her. She could get back to her life, whatever was left of it after all this time wasted babysitting the man who had ruined her. She despised him, or rather she despised the fact that she couldn’t bring herself to.   
  
“I’ll have a raven sent to King’s Landing at once, Ser Jaime,” she declared.   
  
When she brought his evening meal, he ate without argument. There was no enthusiasm for life within him. Yet, there lingered no enthusiasm for death and that was enough. Soon, they would be rid of one another and they could get on with their respective lives, far away from one another.   
  
In the cell, they had made something of a home for themselves. There was the stool on which she sat, set originally in the opposite corner to the bed though over the days, it had moved closer to him. His cot on the floor was uncomfortable and unworthy of its user. The fire was constantly kept burning and despite the small hearth, it somehow managed to keep the Northern chill out of the draught-ridden room.   
  
They ate with one another at every meal and it had become a sort of routine between them. So entirely normal than it would be hard to break out of after all these weeks.    
  
“Why today?” he asked her later on, once the bird was gone with the message at its ankle.

 “Today is the first day that it was true.”

Jaime wondered how she had come to know him so well. At what point in their acquaintance had she become so intimately aware of his behaviours? He knew her just as well, though he hastened to admit it nowadays, but he’d been studying hard to know the woman behind the armour all these years.

He didn’t bicker with her like he used to. There was no fun in that anymore, not when her hatred was so raw and genuine. Instead, he kept to only the most essential conversation, though he dragged it out far longer than he ought. Solitary confinement gave you a great dependency upon even the most basic of human interactions.   
  
“Soon, you will be free of Winterfell and your life will be your own for the first time ever, I believe. Where will you go?”

“I suppose I’ll go to my brother first, and then I’ll claim the Rock if it goes unclaimed. All I want is to stay out of everybody’s way. Perhaps, I’ll finally get the quiet life that I’ve always dreamt of.”   
  
“Perhaps you will, Ser Jaime.”   
  
She wondered if their paths would ever cross again. It was unlikely and yet the Gods had a way of throwing them into each other’s paths from time to time. _The Gods were cruel keepers_ , she thought.


	5. Chapter 5

“Lord Tyrion sent word. Your pardon has arrived. It’s late now so you’ll be released in the morning, but you are officially a free man once more, Ser Jaime,” she announced, setting down a plate in front of him for supper.

He took the dish into his lap but did not begin to eat, instead looking at her.

“I once gave you a suit of armour and a sword and a squire and a horse.” His tone implied she might have forgotten, as if Oathkeeper did not sit at her hip in that very moment. “Perhaps you could return the favour. We both know that the walk to King’s Landing is long and unpleasant from the Riverlands, let alone from this far North. I don’t need to rest of it, but the horse might prove rather essential.”   
  
“I’ll find you a horse,” she snapped as though it was a great burden.

They ate together for the last time and both had their mind locked entirely on the other, considering every slight movement and noise and look. It would be the last time they ever saw each other, Gods willing.

“I have to thank you, Lady Brienne, for everything you’ve done. You quite literally forced me to live when I wanted to die, you’ve loyally stayed at my side every day of my imprisonment, you’ve treated me better than any captive could hope for. And none of it for the first time either,” he remained with a genuine smile. It was the first time she had seen the look on his face since he fled Winterfell: that felt so long ago now. 

“You admit I was good to you,” said Brienne. “So, why did you do it?”  
  
“Which part of it?” In another time, she might have thought he was joking but the intense look on his face was enough to assure her he remained genuine.

“All of it, I suppose but…fine, you came here to fight for the living and you left to fight for your sister. But why toy with me the way you did? Why bed me, and tell me you intended to stay with me until the war was won, and play with my feelings the way you did? Was that for your own amusement?”   
  
Her gaze was steadfast, locked onto him as she spoke. The emotion had ebbed from her words long ago and now she was simply demanding information. The hurt was buried somewhere deep inside of her where even she couldn’t find it. He saw the ease of her tone as she asked and shuddered to think just how much damage he had done.   
  
“No!” he bit out defensively. “I went to bed with you because I desired you, and I said I’d stay because I intended to. It was only once I heard the news of Cersei that I knew I needed to go, knew that her death was inevitable. I was never going to drag you into that, not when you were keeping out of the fighting for the first time if your whole blasted life.”   
  
“You ruined an unwed maiden because you felt like it, that sounds like Jaime Lannister. But if you loved her, why stay in Winterfell? Why not run straight back to her as soon as the fighting was done?”   
  
The light outside was barely there and the entire room was kept lit by the fire Brienne had built. It cast shadows across his face and she could see the sullen expression that he wore, made all the more gut-wrenching by the warm light.   
  
“I didn’t love her,” he mumbled, turning his gaze to the wall and hiding himself from her. “I was obsessed with her, but I realised…even before the Dragon Pit, I knew I didn’t love her anymore. I went out of desperation. If I’d believed she might survive, I would have forced myself to stay.”  
  
“No, you wouldn’t. Don’t lie to me. You know you aren’t capable of it.”   
  
A long silence held between them. Brienne waited patiently for his words, listening to the way his breathing rose and fell differently as adrenaline flooded his veins.   
  
“I wanted her dead!” yelled Jaime.   
  
Brienne took the room in two strides and sat on the bed, yanking him by the arm to look at her with rage and bafflement flooding her gaze.

“What did you just say?”  
  
“While she was living, I could never be the man I wanted to be. The man you wanted me to be. The Jaime Lannister who rode North to fulfil a promise was trying to forget his sister existed, but she is a difficult person to forget. _We were born together and we will die together._ I hated her for making me love her and she needed to die, she was _going_ to die whether I did it or not. So, I rode South, and I found her, and I pleaded with her, and I stabbed her in the back.”   

“That doesn’t make sense,” stammered Brienne nervously. “Why would you lie? Why would you say you were going back to fight for her? Why would you do that to _me?_ ”  
  
 _Moment of truth,_ he thought. If it were anybody else, he might try lying. He could make up some bullshit about wanting an excuse to be rid of her, most women as insecure as she would believe that, but she spotted every tell, even the ones he remained unaware of.   
  
“You would’ve come with me and got yourself killed. Or you would’ve told me you loved me and you’d wait for me and life after her could be _good._ Just because I wanted to be a good man didn’t mean I was one,” he declared. His lips were wet with emotion and sweat dampened his forehead as he spoke, unable to avert his eyes from her now cowering frame. “I didn’t just _go_ to kill Cersei, I _left_ to let you go.”   
  
She punched him hard, square in the jaw, with more force than she’d ever dared to hit him before. He spat blood onto his empty plate, cradling his jaw and looking at her with an acceptance of her reaction.   
  
“In the morning, I will leave, and you can forget I was ever anything more than the Rebel Queen’s brother.”


	6. Chapter 6

Once the household had broken fast, Lady Sansa came to bid her prisoner a safe journey south. The cell had become a home of sorts. He felt so strange stepping over the threshold, as though he were breaking a rule. Brienne followed after him, trailing his steps all the way to the stables where he was handed the reins of a horse.   
  
He turned back to look at her with unspoken gratitude. Nothing could bring him to make her suffer through that. Enough hurt had come between them, he wasn’t about to dredge up even more unwillingly.  
  
“Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want me,” she challenged, unprovoked. “You wouldn’t be the first man.”   
  
“I can’t say that, Brienne. You know I can’t.”   
  
There was not rebuttal from him. No falsehoods for her to cut down. He didn’t even bother lying to her and she was furious with him for that. For once, his deceptions might have given her some peace of mind. She couldn’t send him off without at least asking, it was too great a risk for her to take.   
  
“Then, stay. You said you would, months ago, so keep your word and stay now.”  
  
“You deserve so much more, and you know that you do. I still spent all but the last month of the war on the wrong bloody side, fighting for a woman who would’ve killed you and everyone you cared about…would’ve asked me to do that. I’m trying, Brienne, but I could live like a saint for the rest of my life and I’d die unworthy.”   
  
“I don’t give a shit what you think I deserve. I give a shit about what I want, and I want _you._ Not this version of yourself that you are trying to create, just the man who rode North to fulfil a promise, and who aided me in staying loyal to a vow, and who has saved me more times and more ways than I have time to list. She’s dead, you can stop holding yourself accountable for her, carrying her around like unwanted baggage. She’s gone, and you’re free, to live the life that you always wanted.”   
  
In the quiet of the early morning, there was no doubt that there were people listening to their words. There was no shame between them now, not as there once had been. Jaime had shied away from touching her as though he might besmirch her reputation with even the most modest contact. She was more than her reputation and he knew it without doubt.   
  
“You _want_ to let the man with a record of not one but two regicides pledge himself to you for life?” Jaime was unafraid of speaking truthfully with her. There was nothing he could do to make things worse.   
  
“Well, I _was_ just implying an affair but if you’re so insistent on marriage, I’ve no major objections,” Her teasing lightened the mood for half a second and the smile on his face sent a wave of relief through her.   
  
He closed the gap between them with a long stride and suddenly he was in her space entirely. Every breath was him, as she had grown accustomed to, and the way he felt so close to her was heavenly.

“I won’t stay in the shadows anymore, wench. If you want me, then you’ll have to tell the Gods and see what they think,” he declared unapologetically.   
  
Giving into her was the easiest thing in the world. His entire life had been spent doing what the woman he loved most: first one, then the other. Brienne could’ve asked him to marry her right there and then and he wouldn’t have hesitated.   
  
Jaime resented his own weakness. Her honour would take a blow if she was bound to him, but he had tried, if only slightly, to save her from that.  Experience had taught him that trying to protect her did him very little good.   
  
“I suppose we ought to send a raven to my father.”

Weakness overcame her in that moment. If it weren’t for his hand at her waist, she might have fallen over. Nothing in the world felt as real as this. Him with her, still half hating himself and yet loving her with all he had. He’d spent his entire life living for other people and now, she handed him his freedom and he bound herself to her so easily.

Keeping him here felt unfair and yet she knew how much he needed somebody to keep him alive. If he were more independent, he might survive a life of solitude, but he was Jaime Lannister. _He needs someone to keep him going, he can’t be alone, not even for a moment._

The rest of their lives didn’t sound too bad at all.


	7. Chapter 7

_Father. Warrior. Smith. Mother. Maiden. Crone. Stranger. I am his, and he is mine, from this day, until the end of my days._  
  
The wedding had been beautiful. In the modest sept of Winterfell the two were bound, and after came a feast to sate the hunger of a long winter. Lady Sansa sat at her friend’s side with a mirthful smile. Releasing her from her vow was the easiest thing she’d ever done, she longed to keep her friend close and yet the happiness she might have kept her from was impossible to sacrifice.

“He _is_ rather handsome,” she observed as the two women watched Jaime laugh with his brother. “Beneath it all, I mean. He seems quite happy now, it’s plain to see he adores you.”

 A blush rose in Brienne’s cheeks and she wondered if it showed the same in her. Lord Tyrion had teased her with it oft, but her affections were kept well away from prying eyes. It wasn’t about what they saw, she didn’t mind that at all, it was only that they’d spent so long in singular company now that Brienne found the presence of others made her head ache.   
  
To be alone with him was the finest feeling in the world.

“Lady Brienne,” greeted Bran abruptly and she startled like a deer. “Might I sit with you a while?”

She nodded loosely, wondering what the young Lord might want with her. Lady Sansa had turned her attentions to Yara Greyjoy who had asked her if she wanted to join the dancing, and Brienne found herself alone with the ominous Three Eyed Raven. “He had to go,” Bran said, and it was like the music and the chatter all silenced themselves behind his words. “I told him.”  
  
“What did you tell him, my lord?” asked Brienne and her jaw tightened as she glanced across the room to find her lord husband grinning fiercely.   
  
“The one you love will not live if you don’t leave her.” His prophecies always made her stomach turn, as if his words were curdled milk. “He misunderstood me, I fear, and yet now, he lives in defiance of the future that I saw for him. The Gods are with him, I think.”   
  
_He left to keep me alive_ , she thought. It was no doubt mixed in with his fears of falling short of her expectations, just as much to do with Cersei as it was to do with her and yet this changed things. Her heart heaved in her chest and she longed to hold him and to tell him that the Stranger would not prove a worthy opponent against so fine a blade as he had given her. She would live in spite of what the future held. If there was anybody willing to defy the Gods for love, it was undoubtedly Jaime.

That night, they danced to every tune the singers knew. The moon rose and the stars shone and the newly-weds kicked their shoes off and danced barefoot on the stones. _The Bear and The Maiden Fair_ played and she brought his stump to her cheek and held it there. They had come so far to this moment, and Gods willing, after more goodbyes than they could count, there would never be another.

"You are such a beauty," he told her as they danced. It was the first time. He'd complimented her plenty but calling her beautiful was like to feel false. He recalled the dream that sent him bounding back to Harrenhal, he thought of her face in the firelight as he knighted her. She had a sight worthy of his worship all along, he had only been blind to it. She had always been a beauty, she had always been a knight. 


End file.
